This thesis examines the writings of Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee in order to explore pressing issues that have emerged in literary, philosophical, and theoretical approaches to animal studies. These include animals as disputed objects in claims to territorial, national, and cultural belonging; and the use of animality to manage cultural difference and mobilize identity-based violence. I investigate the roles that hierarchical discourses of species, and the rhetorics of animality that mobilize them, play in cultural and social inscription, cross-cultural conflict, and cultures of violence in the writing of J.M. Coetzee. My dissertation provides historical, material, and cultural context and specificity to the entanglements of race, gender, and culture with the rhetoric and hermeneutics of species, by demonstrating how colonial, Enlightenment, and traditional humanist thought mobilizes speciesism for the cultural work of violence. Intervening in assumptions about the irreconcilability of animal- and human-endorsing approaches to animal studies, I demonstrate that human and non-human animals alike are mutually implicated in conceptual economies that employ animality as a trope; and in the material logistics that mobilize discourses that surround nonhuman animals to do violence to human and nonhuman animals. Coetzee embeds questions about what nonhuman animals mean, or more precisely are made to mean, firmly within the broader politics of interpreting and recognizing alterity, regardless of species, while asking how animals might have a place—in our worlds, in our thought, and in our interventionist strategies—as more than means to human ends. Coetzee’s fictional and critical engagements with nonhuman animals, I argue, comprise a major reassessment of the codes of, and struggles concerning, human and nonhuman animal correspondence and difference. Highlighting the complex interrelations between the cross-cultural violence that mobilizes the rhetoric of species and its attendant violations of nonhuman animal life, Coetzee challenges speciesist schemata that give nonhuman animals symbolic and material currency by imagining how we might read across species differently, in ways that affirm, rather than master, nonhuman animal life. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2013-06-04 16:52:47.618

Não é raro nas produções de J. M. Coetzee e de Roberto Bolaño que a prática artística converta-se em exercício de terror e violência. São constantes as situações em que a construção literária e da literatura produz modos específicos de autoritarismo, esquecimento e injustiça. Tais atos provocam um abalo enunciativo nos textos que os narram, gerando um questionamento sobre sua própria legitimidade (estética, ética, política) e a do campo discursivo ao qual estão associados. Para compreender a situação apresentada e enfrentada por essas obras, esta tese recompõe os percursos históricos por elas traçados. A começar por genealogias da literatura e de sistemas literários, que se entrecruzam, sobrepõe-se ou apropriam-se do passado colonial, do nazismo, das ditaduras latino-americanas e do apartheid, tal como indiciam Foe e La literatura nazi en América. Em seguida, nossa rota se detém sobre os períodos de transições que marcaram tanto a África do Sul como o Chile de finais do século XX, nos quais processos de verdade e justiça acabam se revertendo em casos de neutralização da memória e da linguagem, ficcionalizando a violência do passado em troca da legitimação da nova ordem discursiva do presente, na qual o literário teria um lugar próprio, tal como ocorre, por exemplo, em Nocturno de Chile. Por último, abre-se o presente democrático a partir do qual todos esses livros são narrados, em que a literatura se converte no produto mais bem acabado de um regime de oferta da palavra e de administração da multiplicidade, sob a forma do direito e da promessa do direito. Assim se configuram, por exemplo, Elizabeth Costello ou Los detectives salvajes, sem, no entanto, deixarem de esboçar uma fuga desse horizonte, em busca de outros mundos, outras formas possíveis de partilhar a linguagem. Nessa trajetória, iremos rever importantes conceitos e valores que estão intimamente ligados a essa prática simbólica tais como autonomia, liberdade, memória, democracia, entre outros, para que possamos compreender em que condições a literatura pode se tornar indesejável ou mesmo repudiável, tais como conjecturam esses autores / It is not uncommon, in the works of J. M. Coetzee and Roberto Bolaño for artistic practice to convert itself into the exercise of terror and violence. In numerous situations, the literary construction and literature produce particular types of authoritarianism, oblivion and injustice. Such acts provoke an enunciative disturbance in the narrating texts, generating questions about their own (esthetic, ethics, politics) legitimacy and about the discursive field to which they are associated. In order to understand the situation presented and the ones faced by these literary works, this thesis reconstructs the historical paths tery trace. The study begins with literary genealogies and literary systems that intersect, overlap or appropriate Colonial History, Nazism, Latin American dictatorships and the apartheid, such as indicated by Foe and La literatura nazi en América. Then the focus rests on periods of transition that mark both South Africa and Chile at the end of the 20th century. In such periods truth commissions and justice end up reverting to the neutralization of memory and language, fictionalizing the violence of the past in exchange for the legitimization of the new discursive order of the present, in which literature would have a place of its own, such as in Nocturno de Chile. Lastly, the democratic present is the opening from which all of these books are narrated, wherein literature converts itself into the most polished product of a supply scheme of the written word and the administration of multiplicity, in the form and the promise of the right. It thereby constitutes the works, Elizabeth Costello or Los detectives salvajes, for example, while simultaneously sketching an escape of this horizon, in search of other worlds, other possible forms of sharing language. In this trajectory, important concepts will be reconsidered, along with values closely linked to the literary, such as autonomy, freedom, memory, and democracy, among others, so that it may be possible to understand in which conditions, literature can become undesirable or even despicable, as these authors conjecture

Não é raro nas produções de J. M. Coetzee e de Roberto Bolaño que a prática artística converta-se em exercício de terror e violência. São constantes as situações em que a construção literária e da literatura produz modos específicos de autoritarismo, esquecimento e injustiça. Tais atos provocam um abalo enunciativo nos textos que os narram, gerando um questionamento sobre sua própria legitimidade (estética, ética, política) e a do campo discursivo ao qual estão associados. Para compreender a situação apresentada e enfrentada por essas obras, esta tese recompõe os percursos históricos por elas traçados. A começar por genealogias da literatura e de sistemas literários, que se entrecruzam, sobrepõe-se ou apropriam-se do passado colonial, do nazismo, das ditaduras latino-americanas e do apartheid, tal como indiciam Foe e La literatura nazi en América. Em seguida, nossa rota se detém sobre os períodos de transições que marcaram tanto a África do Sul como o Chile de finais do século XX, nos quais processos de verdade e justiça acabam se revertendo em casos de neutralização da memória e da linguagem, ficcionalizando a violência do passado em troca da legitimação da nova ordem discursiva do presente, na qual o literário teria um lugar próprio, tal como ocorre, por exemplo, em Nocturno de Chile. Por último, abre-se o presente democrático a partir do qual todos esses livros são narrados, em que a literatura se converte no produto mais bem acabado de um regime de oferta da palavra e de administração da multiplicidade, sob a forma do direito e da promessa do direito. Assim se configuram, por exemplo, Elizabeth Costello ou Los detectives salvajes, sem, no entanto, deixarem de esboçar uma fuga desse horizonte, em busca de outros mundos, outras formas possíveis de partilhar a linguagem. Nessa trajetória, iremos rever importantes conceitos e valores que estão intimamente ligados a essa prática simbólica tais como autonomia, liberdade, memória, democracia, entre outros, para que possamos compreender em que condições a literatura pode se tornar indesejável ou mesmo repudiável, tais como conjecturam esses autores / It is not uncommon, in the works of J. M. Coetzee and Roberto Bolaño for artistic practice to convert itself into the exercise of terror and violence. In numerous situations, the literary construction and literature produce particular types of authoritarianism, oblivion and injustice. Such acts provoke an enunciative disturbance in the narrating texts, generating questions about their own (esthetic, ethics, politics) legitimacy and about the discursive field to which they are associated. In order to understand the situation presented and the ones faced by these literary works, this thesis reconstructs the historical paths tery trace. The study begins with literary genealogies and literary systems that intersect, overlap or appropriate Colonial History, Nazism, Latin American dictatorships and the apartheid, such as indicated by Foe and La literatura nazi en América. Then the focus rests on periods of transition that mark both South Africa and Chile at the end of the 20th century. In such periods truth commissions and justice end up reverting to the neutralization of memory and language, fictionalizing the violence of the past in exchange for the legitimization of the new discursive order of the present, in which literature would have a place of its own, such as in Nocturno de Chile. Lastly, the democratic present is the opening from which all of these books are narrated, wherein literature converts itself into the most polished product of a supply scheme of the written word and the administration of multiplicity, in the form and the promise of the right. It thereby constitutes the works, Elizabeth Costello or Los detectives salvajes, for example, while simultaneously sketching an escape of this horizon, in search of other worlds, other possible forms of sharing language. In this trajectory, important concepts will be reconsidered, along with values closely linked to the literary, such as autonomy, freedom, memory, and democracy, among others, so that it may be possible to understand in which conditions, literature can become undesirable or even despicable, as these authors conjecture

Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura da chamada ficção australiana de J. M. Coetzee composta por Elizabeth Costello (2003), Homem lento (2005) e Diário de um ano ruim (2007). Esses romances da fase madura do autor compartilham um núcleo de questões estéticas e éticas, configurando um conjunto significativo marcado pela inflexão autorreflexiva. O trabalho acompanha a constituição e a trajetória dos escritores-personagens Elizabeth Costello e Señor C, discutindo como a inserção do recurso do duplo do escritor desestabiliza as noções de autor, personagem e narrador, além de borrar os limites entre ficção e não ficção. A dramatização do processo criativo no centro das obras é outro foco da análise, com o objetivo de entender a encenação da impossibilidade do romance nos moldes do realismo formal. O estudo ainda tenta sugerir a resposta de Coetzee sobre a validade do romance no mundo contemporâneo. / This dissertation presents a reading of J. M. Coetzees so-called Australian fiction comprising the works Elizabeth Costello (2003), Slow Man (2005), and Diary of a Bad Year (2007). These novels, belonging to the authors late prose, share core aesthetic and ethical issues. They are meaningful works characterized by self-reflexive inflection. This study follows Elizabeth Costello and Señor C in their writer-characters constitution and journey to discuss how the presence of the writers double, as literary device, destabilizes the notions of author, character, and narrator, as well as it blurs the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. The dramatization of the creative process in the center of Coetzees works is another focus of analysis aiming to understand the impossibility of staging the novel in formal realism patterns. This work also attempts to suggest Coetzees response on the validity of the novel in the contemporary world.

Esta dissertação propõe uma leitura da chamada ficção australiana de J. M. Coetzee composta por Elizabeth Costello (2003), Homem lento (2005) e Diário de um ano ruim (2007). Esses romances da fase madura do autor compartilham um núcleo de questões estéticas e éticas, configurando um conjunto significativo marcado pela inflexão autorreflexiva. O trabalho acompanha a constituição e a trajetória dos escritores-personagens Elizabeth Costello e Señor C, discutindo como a inserção do recurso do duplo do escritor desestabiliza as noções de autor, personagem e narrador, além de borrar os limites entre ficção e não ficção. A dramatização do processo criativo no centro das obras é outro foco da análise, com o objetivo de entender a encenação da impossibilidade do romance nos moldes do realismo formal. O estudo ainda tenta sugerir a resposta de Coetzee sobre a validade do romance no mundo contemporâneo. / This dissertation presents a reading of J. M. Coetzees so-called Australian fiction comprising the works Elizabeth Costello (2003), Slow Man (2005), and Diary of a Bad Year (2007). These novels, belonging to the authors late prose, share core aesthetic and ethical issues. They are meaningful works characterized by self-reflexive inflection. This study follows Elizabeth Costello and Señor C in their writer-characters constitution and journey to discuss how the presence of the writers double, as literary device, destabilizes the notions of author, character, and narrator, as well as it blurs the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. The dramatization of the creative process in the center of Coetzees works is another focus of analysis aiming to understand the impossibility of staging the novel in formal realism patterns. This work also attempts to suggest Coetzees response on the validity of the novel in the contemporary world.

This study addresses two works of fiction--Samuel Beckett's Malone Dies and J. M. Coetzee's Foe--and is separated into two chapters. The first chapter analyzes the indeterminate nature of postmodern space within the two novels as related to M. M. Bakhtin's idea of the chronotope found in his work The Dialogic Imagination. The second chapter addresses the self-reflexive creation of this postmodern space within each novel's hypodiegetic narratives and discussions of narrative creation within each respective diegetic narratives. In each novel, characters as authors create or discuss "inner" narratives that reflect upon the way chronotopes are created in fiction and reveal problematic aspects of those chronotopes. This narrative creation produces what I call a "postmodern creative chronotope" that self-reflexively embraces indeterminacy at the same time that it critiques the elements that produce this indefinite relationship between time and space, a strategy that is especially postmodern. I contextualize the discussion by introducing theories of postmodernism, specifically those of Jean-François Lyotard and Linda Hutcheon. Lyotard's claim that postmodernism resists totalizing structures and Hutcheon's contention that it engages in a simultaneous complicity and critique inform the relationships between time and space in both Beckett's and Coetzee's text. Additionally, theories of postmodern space contribute to the more specific discussion of the postmodern chronotopes in both novels. Spatial theorists like Edward Soja and Henri Lefebvre, among others, have attempted to reassert issues of space in what has been an ontological and epistemological framework that has prioritized time. Their reassertion of spatiality reconnects the two halves of the spatio-temporal framework of the chronotope in narrative. Beckett and Coetzee employ similar indeterminate and self-reflexive chronotopal strategies in their novels. Coetzee, however, inserts a number of global/political issues into his self-reflexive discussion of chronotopal creation and definition.

A multidisciplinary approach is needed to critique the frequently invoked but seldom questioned notion of "human dignity," a discursive tool that is subtly serving abusive power structures while seemingly promoting human rights. The discourse of human dignity misrepresents the meaning of empowerment for modern citizens, making them interested more in political gestures and less in profit, comfort and protection from abuse. Dignity‘s epistemes—self-assertion, recognition, political action, public-spiritedness, responsibility, resistance, the denial of animal instinct, sacrifice—should not be human ideals, for they are exactly the opposite of the sovereign‘s characteristics and because they are responsible for recursive violence that preserves the status quo. They should be replaced with ethics based on sensuous interest, instinct, and natural-spiritedness (a sense of mystical oneness with other living beings). This dissertation answers Foucault‘s question about how the modern state endows citizens with a political subjectivity while simultaneously subjecting them to a totalized system, exposing human dignity as just the link between individuation and totalization. It questions Agamben‘s notion of the indistinction between political life and natural life, arguing that sovereign power, using the discourse of human dignity, creates a clear distinction. The human dignity discourse keeps the human within political life, representing such life as the middle point between the instinctive life of the animal and the mechanical life of the laborer. In reality, the dissertation shows, these two demonized modes of life are the same mode, which should be championed as a valuable and empowered state of being. In the literary field, a close examination reveals that J. M. Coetzee‘s fiction subverts the human dignity discourse while Kazuo Ishiguro‘s work is enmeshed in it. Coetzee generates sympathy for humans who lack the sense of human dignity and act on mere instinct. He offers ―disgrace‖ as a spiritual-ethical state of sensuality, acceptance and humility and promotes an agenda of desire-based rights in lieu of dignity-based ones. His writings also eschew authorial dignity as they discount the values of newness and originality in favor of expression attuned to desire, even when such moves appear selfish and politically irresponsible.

Boyhood (1997) is the first volume of Scenes from Provincial Life trilogy, written by the South-African J. M. Coetzee. Boyhood’s narrative has peculiar characteristics for an autobiographical novel, as the third person narrator and the use of Present Simple. This research’s hypothesis is that the protagonist, the boy John Coetzee, discovers himself and discovers himself within the apartheid regime; and this self-discovery is not done through the form of teaching or reporting from a conscious and rational narrative. The process of discovering himself within this regime occurs through its infantile conscience, puerile observations and the construction of the general protagonist’s perception. From this hypothesis, we discuss in this dissertation selfwritting narratives and traditional confessional narratives in literature, based on Coetzee’s theoretical studies, to later analyze some of the main features of the narrative in this novel to verify how non-religious confession techniques are present in Boyhood. Coetzee manipulates these confessional techniques avoiding the typical confessional narrative, present in authors like Augustine, J. J. Rousseau and Dostoevsky. In this study, we also observe that the narrative episodes are based on confession, a self-investigating method that highlights painful contents to be confessed. Among these contents, we noticed the feelings of guilt and shame are recurrent in most the protagonist’s experiences. Confessional narrative is a method that Coetzee uses to debug knowledge and to select themes presented in Boyhood, differently from traditional confessional narratives. / Boyhood (1997) é o primeiro volume da trilogia autobiográfica Scenes from Provincial Life, do escritor sul-africano J. M. Coetzee. A narrativa de Boyhood tem características peculiares para um romance autobiográfico, como o narrador em terceira pessoa e o uso do tempo presente. A hipótese de pesquisa é que o protagonista, o menino John Coetzee, descobre-se e descobre-se no regime do apartheid, e essa autodescoberta não se dá pela forma de ensinamento ou de relato a partir de uma narrativa consciente e racional. O processo de descobrir-se dentro desse regime dá-se através de sua consciência infantil, de observações pueris e da construção da percepção geral do protagonista. A partir dessa hipótese, discutimos nessa dissertação narrativas da escrita do eu e narrativas confessionais tradicionais na literatura, baseada em estudos teóricos de Coetzee, para, posteriormente, analisamos algumas das principais características da narrativa nessa obra para verificar como a técnicas de confissão não-religiosas estão presentes em Boyhood. Coetzee manipula essas técnicas evitando a típica narrativa confessional presente em autores como Agostinho, J. J. Rousseau e Dostoievski. Neste estudo, observamos também que os episódios da narrativa dão-se a partir da confissão, um método autoinvestigativo que traz à tona conteúdos dolorosos a serem confessados. Dentre esses conteúdos, também notamos que os sentimentos de culpa e de vergonha são recorrentes em boa parte dessas experiências do protagonista. A narrativa confessional é um método que Coetzee utiliza para depurar o conhecimento e selecionar os temas apresentados em Boyhood, diferente de narrativas confessionais tradicionais.

The thesis relates Coetzee’s focus on animals to his more familiar themes of the possibility of fiction as a vehicle for serious ethical issues, the interrogation of power and authority, a concern for the voiceless and the marginalised, a keen sense of justice and the question of secular salvation. The concepts developed in substantial analyses of The Lives of Animals and Disgrace are thereafter applied to several other works of Coetzee. The thesis attempts to position J.M. Coetzee within the animal rights debate and to assess his use of his problematic persona, Elizabeth Costello, who controversially uses reason to attack the rationalism of the Western philosophical tradition and who espouses the sympathetic imagination as a means of developing respect for animals. Costello’s challenge to the philosophers is problematised by being traced back to Plato’s original formulation of the opposition between philosophers and poets. It is argued that Costello represents a fallible Socratic figure who critiques not reason per se but an unqualified rationalism. This characterisation of Costello explains her preoccupation with raising the ethical awareness of her audience, as midwife to the birth of ideas, and perceptions of her as a wise fool, a characterisation that is confirmed by the use of Bakhtin’s notion of the Socratic dialogue as one of the precursors of the modern novel. Along with the Platonic/Socratic binary, Bakhtin’s concepts of polyphony, dialogism and monologism are applied to analyses of Coetzee’s fiction, which, in keeping with his anti-authoritarianism, is shown to be polyphonic. Costello’s apparently insensitive and repeated comparison of industrialised animal farms to Nazi concentration camps is likewise scrutinised. It is argued that the point of the comparison is to question the normality and humanity of societies that choose to ignore the suffering of animals in the animal exploitation industries. Her raising the question of this willed ignorance is related to Socrates’ maxim that evil is a result of ignorance, and Coetzee’s concern with the psychic cost to their humanity of those complicit in these industries is considered. David Lurie’s evocation of Holocaust imagery in Disgrace is also examined, as is the role of art and the sympathetic imagination in attaining a degree of grace. Platonic ideas on eros, beauty, art and immortality are found to be central to Coetzee’s fiction, not only to that relating to Costello but also to Disgrace and much of his other work. While acknowledging the importance of Plato, Coetzee continuously extends, tests and subverts his ideas, frequently subjecting them to carnivalistic play. Unexpected connections are made between Coetzee’s conception of the parent-child relationship, both biological and intellectual, and his notions of creativity, power and justice. Ideas of eating and fasting are explored in his fiction and related to the hunger-artistry of Franz Kafka. Coetzee’s ideas on animals, writing and diet are found to be essential to his notions of secular salvation and an ethical way of life. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / English / unrestricted

This thesis attempts to develop a concept of 'ecological misapprehension' by means of an object-oriented ecocritical analysis of several works by J. M. Coetzee. Noting Coetzee's profound, often overlooked interest in nonhuman, nonanimal ecological existents (on the one hand), and his neomodernist propensity to interrogate the viability of signification (on the other), I argue that his works repeatedly gesture towards an ontological reality of ecological objects that is necessarily extratextual. I further argue that if human ‘readers’—both of and within Coetzee’s fiction—are inextricably entangled within modes of discourse by which meaning is made of those objects, the encounter between human subject and ecological object always takes place across a discursive threshold best understood in terms of the ‘irreducible gap’ that object-oriented ontology identifies between an object’s being and its perception. This gap problematises our apprehension of the ecological object as such, thus rendering ecological misapprehension inevitable—and, by extension, demanding that we remain attuned to the character, density, or degree of our propensity to misapprehend. Variants of this dynamic—and its troubling ramifications—are illuminated by means of close readings of a range of Coetzee’s texts, with particular attention paid to Disgrace, Life & Times of Michael K, and the short story ‘Nietverloren’, and are subsequently compared with examples of misapprehension in the world beyond the page. By developing this concept and identifying examples of it both within and without Coetzee’s works, the thesis aims to illuminate a fundamental obstacle to productive modes of environmental thinking in the Anthropocene, to suggest the activist potential of metafiction and the postmodernist reading practices it encourages, and to reaffirm the potential social utility of literary scholarship when it is conducted with an awareness of its own tendency to misapprehend.